[Video] The legislative comeback of patriarchal misogyny: Greek government passes compulsory joint custody legislation
Perhaps the greatest achievement of Greek progressives during the past four decades was the 1983 Family Law. It jolted Greece from the Dark Ages and, quite astonishingly, ushered in a legal framework regarding marriage, divorce and custody that was far ahead of its time, even when compared to the most progressive countries at the time (including the Scandinavian countries).
For example, it banned dowries, introduced consensual divorce, established the principle of an equal division of assets that accumulated during a marriage (independently on which partner had ‘earned’ it), ensured that women kept their surnames (indeed, it made it next to impossible for wives legally to take on their husbands’ surname), made couples choose by consent the surname of their children etc.
This major shift, from a medieval to an ultra progressive Family Law, did not just happen. It took the heroic struggles of an energetic and multifaceted feminist movement to materialise. It also took the election, in October 1981, of Andreas Papandreou’s socialist party, as well as the concerted efforts of his wife – feminist leader Margaret Papandreou. Finally, the 1983 Family Law was scripted by some very able, progressive, jurists and legal experts during a period when progressive movement were dominating the Greek political terrain.
Naturally, back then, the Right (the New Democracy conservatives) fought tooth and nail against the new Family Law. They protested against the banning of dowries, campaigned to ensure property rights remained skewed toward men, opposed consensual divorce and, generally, adopted every grim patriarchal argument one could imagine.
For almost four decades the Right bid their time. Last Friday, 21st May 2021, they got their revenge on the floor of our Parliament in the form of new legislation, tabled by the current aggressively authoritarian New Democracy government. The bill in question introduced compulsory joint custody of children following an acrimonious divorce.
This means that, even if the judge finds that a parent is unfit to have custody of the child, the judge must award said partner at least ⅓ of the child’s time. Even in cases where the defective partner has been charged with abuse, the judge cannot deny said partner this minimum custody before the courts have delivered a final guilty verdict. In other words, a wife beater or child abuser retains partial custody of the child during the many months and years it takes for his prosecution to yield a conviction.
As I said in my speech in Parliament (click above for the subtitled video and/or read below), the only explanation for this incomprehensibly absurd legislation is the misogynic, antifeminist, revanchism of a Right that never forgave and never forgot the passing of the 1983 Family Law during a different period; a period during which Greek progressives were on the ascendancy.
Addressing Greece’s Parliament on 21st May 2021
Sixteen years have passed since I first saw how joint custody can make the difference.
How it can dull the pain in the process of a divorce, of a break-up. How it can support the children. How it can support the parents so they can support their children.
Allow me to speak personally, referring to events that unfolded in 2005, because the personal is political, as the feminists of the 70s taught us. It was the time when my daughter, then 15 months old, moved to Australia, with her mother of course.
During that same period, I met a couple who practised joint custody, consensually of course. A well-off couple, they walked the difficult path of a break-up with all the pain that it entails, BUT they were lucky. They had the means: two houses near each other, both featuring equivalent bedrooms to their two children, their school in close proximity to bot their homes. I freely confess I was very, very jealous of them.
The comparison with what I was experiencing at that same time was devastating. I had just become reconciled to the idea, which crushes the soul of so many fellow fathers, that we must learn to live without our child.
Even if my situation was extreme, because my daughter could not have gone further, I don’t doubt that this pain, this despair is something experienced by thousands of people out there.
So from this podium of our Parliament, I look up into the camera in front of me to look into the eyes of you fellow divorced fathers, you who were forced to drink too this poison, to reconcile also with the inhuman idea that you cannot live with your kids.
And I am telling you. Yes, from personal experience, I know:
- the pain of sitting in the car outside our child’s home, unable to walk in at will
- the anger that grows inside you at the thought – true or untrue – that someone is using your child against you
- the injustice of being told that it is in the child’s interest that it doesn’t grow up with you
- the sadness that you have systematically to yield on things that you consider of substance so that the child isn’t caught in the crossfire one more time
- the powerlessness brought on by the inability to teach your child things you know and which you think it should know but which you just can’t teach her or him during the odd weekend or the short holidays you spend together
- the feeling that important decisions are taken behind your back.
I remember the suffocation induced by the thought that, were I to go to family court to petition for custody or even joint custody, I would lose.
I will be honest with you: If I had had a button I could push to have my daughter with me 100% of the time, I’d push it. If I had another button that would give me 50% of the time, I’d push it. If I had a button that would give me a third of the time, I’d push it. Without a second thought.
BUT, colleagues, it is one thing what I want. And it is quite another thing what I want the state to do, or not to do, in my name – on my behalf.
I remember a conversation with a supporter of the death sentence back when, once upon a time, we lived in Texas, in the #1 state for executions. He asked: “If they rape and kill your daughter or wife, wouldn’t you kill the murderer, the rapist?” Without thinking I replied: “I’d want to strangle him with my bare hands”. But immediately I added: “However, I don’t want to live in a country, an organised society that allows me to do so. And I don’t want to live in an organised society that murders him on my behalf.”
The very same applies to joint custody: Yes, I wanted it for me, fervently. As do many others. But if joint custody is not consensual, then no, I wouldn’t want society to impose it on my behalf. I would never want a state to legislate that which I want in my anger and despair.
Mr Minister,
There is a difference between a wish and its imposition through private or state coercion.
The most beautiful things, when they are imposed, turn into monsters.
Take love. Take sex. When it occurs naturally it’s the most beautiful thing on earth. But when it is imposed, through violence, it becomes rape.
Same goes for joint custody of children after a divorce. If joint custody happens consensually,
it’s an oasis in the misery of break-up. But if the state imposes joint custody, it becomes a farce. It becomes a violation of logic, with the child as its victim.
I say it again: I fervently wanted joint custody. But simultaneously I understood, with pain and even with fury, I don’t hide it, that it was RIGHT to not have rights as a father. Only my daughter had rights.
Joint custody equals collaboration. And collaboration cannot be imposed by law. It would be brilliant if every child of divorced parents had bedrooms in two equivalent houses, both close to her or his school, so that she or he can spend one week with one parent, one week with the other parent, slowly acquiring the right – at around 12 to 14 – to have a say on how to divide her or his time between the two parents/homes.
Yes, this would be brilliant. However no lawmaker, no judge, no state mechanism can impose such a regime. As long as the state cannot provide such evenly balanced resources, as long as the judges and the social workers cannot provide both parents with the time and material capacities to deliver this beautiful framework, joint custody cannot be dictated by the Law in a manner that removes a judge’s discretionary power.
I now want to come to the fear of the so-called (in your Bill) “alienation” of the child from
the divorced father. I don’t deny it: I harboured this fear. As I watched at the airport my daughter leave for Australia, to a place so far away, I did have this fear.
Fortunately it proved – and I’m sure it happens in all such situations – that my fear was foolish.
Dear colleagues, children do NOT get alienated from fathers who love them, irrespectively of how much time they spend apart.
A coupe of days ago, my daughter Xenia turned 17.
17 years of separation.
17 years during which I got to use Skype years before any of you did – because I used it to tell her bedtime stories, watching her fall asleep on my screen – as far back as 2005.
I’m not denying it was difficult to keep in touch. Especially when she grew up. We tried hard to see each other 3, maybe 4, times a year. You can imagine what that means in terms of distance, expense, fatigue… We managed. Let me add that this pandemic has hit us hard . For the first time, we haven’t met in over a year and we don’t know when we shall meet again, given that Australian borders will remain closed till mid-2022, according to Australia’s Prime Minister. Nevertheless, despite that, I must say that, maybe because of this distance, we are maybe closer, more linked, than if we had lived together.
Not without losses, of course. There has not been a day in 17 years when we’re apart that isn’t marked by the thought “another day without you”. We count the days till the next meeting, and when we’re together, we
count the days till we must part again.
Ladies and gentlemen, while separation is tough, it does not validate the fear of ‘alienation’, the fake theory of the child-father alienation.
Mr Minister, Members of the government,
When there is no consensual path to joint custody, there should be family courts with specialised judges, far from the conventional courts, in specially designed buildings teaming psychologists, social workers who help maximise the chances of consent, of custody arrangements that are as joint as they benefit the children. With the only and absolute criterion being the protection of their rights.
Instead of such costly family courts, what your government is doing today is: You are changing the law. Which law?
The Family Law of 1983, which remains until today an example to follow, a monument to progressive legislation and to rationality.
From this podium of our Parliament, I want to pay tribute to the women’s organisations who struggled so hard in the 1970s to make the Family Law of 1983 a reality.
I shall refer to the Greek Women’s Federation (OGE), the Movement of Democratic Women (KDE), the Greek Women’s Union (EGE), and certainly to Margarita Papandreou, who deserves accolades for her contribution because I know personally how much she has contributed to the cause. And, of course, to the independent, autonomous feminists movement. To the way the entire political system – the progressive one, not the political space that you of the Right were never part of, as steadfast supporters of anything grim and regressive, as evidenced by the fact that in 1983 you voted against that EXCELLENT bill and supported DOWRIES even then. So, don’t forget who you are! Be aware of your crimes, of your guilt!
So today you appear before us to wreck this splendid Family Law authored by a Magakis, a Maragopoulou, a Manesis, a Kasimatis – the very law which you had voted against at the time. Today you come to “amend” it.
Mr Minister,
You asked: Aren’t there any problems with the existing custody regime? Of course there are, countless ones. But, the problems have nothing to do with our Family law. The problems are with its application. With judicial practice and process. But what do you choose to do? You choose not to confront the countless existing problems and, instead, to create new problems with this disgusting bill which consciously turns a beautiful wish into an ugly state imposition.
In this you resemble the extremist ringleaders of American anti-abortionists. The huge paradox in that situation, of the antiabortionist women and men, is the following: The very same people who fight for the
embryo’s right to life, even if it’s the result of rape, are dead against everything that could improve
the life of a child born into an underprivileged family. Such as free education, free healthcare, decent wages at the workplace when it grows up and starts working.
Similarly with you. Your compulsory joint custody legislation suffers from the same paradox: You, who speak in favour of joint custody, you are NOT interested in the creation and staffing of the family courts which maximise the chances of consensual joint custody.
I am again looking into the camera, because I want once more to look divorced fathers in the eye. And I tell you this: Our pain as divorced fathers is unbearable, I know it.
But, let be honest: We males are also paying the price for living in a deeply sexist, patriarchal society.
Here’s why (something that most men refuse to acknowledge) feminism does not concern only women and their emancipation. Feminism is about the demolition of a power system whose victims are also men! Especially sensitive men.
So the solution is not to join the Mitsotakis government’s new anti-feminism. The solution is to build a polity that supports finding consensual solutions; not one which enacts patriarchy’s revanchism. A patriarchal revanchism which, as also Ms Yannakou mentioned, to her credit, enlists deep pockets, deep oligarchic pockets for the promotion of your Bill. Independently of whether you believe in your bill Minister, and I’m sure you believe in it, the pockets supporting your campaign are too deep to be honest, as we see in expensive posters at every bus stop.
The solution, for us, as MeRA25, is the New Feminism that governs our party – the New Feminism that continues in the steps of the previous feminism of the 1970s, which gave rise to the Family Law of 1983. A New Feminism which today fights your bill, Mr Minister.
Finally, Mr Speaker, dear colleagues,
I do not need to stress to you that laws are not written for good people. They are not written for citizens who do right and don’t need to the law to force them. Family Law is written for the divorced couples who can’t agree with one another. It is also written for those who cannot make do – who have problems of personal, psychological and economic survival.
Joint custody, which is something precious, which I wish it on all divorced couples – I’m saying this with all my soul – joint custody requires collaboration. It requires understanding. But collaboration and understanding cannot be imposed by lawmakers and judges. Collaboration and understanding are nurtured with the help of public institutions which you DON’T want to create. These public institutions go against your DNA!
Let me remind you – I’m sure you remember, but I shall remind you nevertheless – that in the introduction of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy wrote that all happy families are alike, but all unhappy families are unhappy each in their own way. The same applies to divorced couples who fail to collaborate: Every one of them creates different forms of misery for their children. And society has a duty to confront every one of them individually, without one-size-fits-all templates, without ad hoc restrictions to the judges’s discretionary power.
Your Bill aggravates the misery of the miserable couples and, yes, of their children. The only reason you are bringing it to the House is so as to satisfy the Right’s revanchism against the emblematic Family Law of 1983 – the one you fought acrimoniously then, and which you are targeting now.
Mr Minister, Members of the government,
Today you are writing yet another black page in your party’s black and web-infested chronicles. Without even caring that the cost of this revanchism and of your misogynist folly, will be paid by innocent children.
Good night, Mr Minister.
Vote now on our stance on the Israel-Palestine question and our policy for Europe’s 2020s
The time has come for our movement to make two important decisions, one related to the future of Europe (which is being ridiculed by the EU’s so-called “Conference on the Future of Europe”) and one on the appalling situation in Israel and Palestine.
You can find them below:
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It’s been half a decade since DiEM25 was launched to fight Europe’s slide into authoritarianism and renew the European project with a new ambitious purpose: democratisation! Since then, the political landscape has changed, and we have done our best to remain relevant. This is culminating in the vote for “What Europe Must Do Now”: our list of key, priority policies for Europe’s 2020s. Click here to read the paper and vote on whether our movement should adopt it as the framework for our future efforts. Deadline: 02/06/2021 VOTE
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In light of recent, all-too-familiar developments in Israel-Palestine, the Coordinating Collective (CC) has concluded that DiEM25 can no longer postpone the adoption of an official position on this matter. Which is why as a DiEM25 member you can now log in to the Members’ Area, read the two proposals and vote for the one you prefer. Deadline: 10/06/2021 VOTE
Thank you for taking the time to help our movement become stronger.
[Video] Israel-Palestine: What should our position be? Feat. Roger Waters
In light of recent, all-too-familiar developments in Israel-Palestine, the Coordinating Collective (CC) has concluded that DiEM25 can no longer postpone the adoption of an official position on this matter.
Which is why starting from today DiEM25 members are being asked to vote on two proposed resolutions on Palestine-Israel [link to the forum debate for members].
In preparation for the vote, we organised an online debate to give an opportunity for both positions to be presented and debated in order to help DiEM25 members make their mind as to which way to vote.
The event took place on Friday, May 28 at 6PM CEST and counted with the guest appearance of English songwriter, singer, bassist, and composer Roger Waters. Click on the video above to watch it back now.
If you’re a member of DiEM25, please head over to the Members’ Area to cast your vote (opening soon).
Yanis Varoufakis in conversation with Michael Albert — May 31, 7PM CEST
Tonight at 7PM CEST
Yanis Varoufakis, DiEM25 co-founder and MeRA25 leader, hosts Michael Albert, founder of ZNet, ZCommunications and ZRevolution, three remarkable networks of thousands of activists.
Tune in at 7PM CEST to hear more about Michael Albert’s post-capitalist vision, which he abbreviates as PARECON, or Participatory Economies/ics.
Click above for livestream link.
Group of men in DiEM25 discuss masculinity and gender-based violence
Following the recent month of activity around sex and gender-based violence, several of the men in the DiEM Gender DSC [thematic group] got together to talk about how men could do more in the struggle against gender-based violence.
Mike: I think men are emotionally split when we think about opposing male violence towards women. When I was very small, my father taught me to deal with physical or emotional hurt with suppression, aggression and anger. He didn’t want me to suffer the consequences of being seen as a “sissy” or an easy target for bullies. But as an adult, I realise the things I invested in to “become a man” are part of the dynamic that drives violence against women. It’s uncomfortable!
Nicholas: And so many institutions – and I’d include marriage, and having a family – will tend to push us unconsciously into that role. We are led to do exactly the opposite of what we want. I found myself in the “male” role of wage-earner while my wife became a full-time mother. It was profoundly uncomfortable, so I shut my eyes and got on with it.
Alexander: It has to be reinforced all the time. I often hear that girls dressing in a short skirt are basically calling for being fucked, or I see the romanticising of men’s ownership of women, as “jealousy”. When we get a female lead in a TV show, she ends up being stalked and terrorised by a man – vulnerable to them. Violent and controlling relationships between women and men are eroticised.
Olivier: Popular music too – masculinity is symbolised by earning a good living and being courted by women. Capitalist ideology is implicit and taken as the natural state of affairs.
Alexander: As a Russian migrant, I saw friends and family reproducing “what a real man should be” in the most capitalistic, patriarchal clichés. Migrant men in fragile situations want to reassert their masculinity by exaggerating their credentials as a “strong man”…
Olivier: As a neurodivergent, this has always felt wrong to me. Growing up, I was victimised for walking on my toes “like a dancer”, for showing emotion, for not hesitating to wear multi-coloured clothes. In my home country, France, we had to conform – a boy has to be strong and agile, like in football. The systems and the structures I grew up in put violence inside me.
Nicholas: I am undoubtedly neurodivergent too, but was never diagnosed as such. My musical gift put me in a special category in my family, but I was incapable of seeing it as a career. Because of this, I was effectively developing the woman and the man inside me simultaneously, in a rather schizophrenic way. The idea of violence against women never entered my head, but aged 26, I was shown in a dream all the violence I was projecting unconsciously because I could not own it as part of myself. It nearly sent me over the edge.
Mike: As boys, we are taught to kill parts of ourselves – the gentler, sensitive, experimental and vulnerable parts – in exchange for certain “male” privileges. It sets us up to become people who will perform violence on others – especially those who exhibit those same qualities.
Olivier: The gender binary is intrinsic to patriarchy and capitalism. And we are seeing terrible consequences for girls and trans people now.
Amadeo: I feel I was born a feminist. Being a Trans child, everything I did questioned the status quo in terms of gender. My family had two very strong matriarchs – both self proclaimed feminists. I set out to make films when I was seventeen and looked for a mentor. I met (film-maker) Kenneth MacKinnon, and it was love at first sight. He was a father figure and a role model for me. I never thought of feminism without encompassing men who are ready to look at themselves and question their “natural” masculine traits, what it does to the world – and to themselves.
Alexander: Our most immediate need now must be to stop enacting this violence. We need to learn about our own blind spots and talk to women about their perspectives, how they experience violence, and what they need. We have to quit blaming the victims of violence and instead provide them with what they need to heal their wounds. Call out words and actions that put women down in everyday life and everyday situations.
Olivier: Not only do we have to be allies in feminist struggles to break up structural patriarchy, we have to take control of the violence that this capitalistic society projects within us. Otherwise none of us will be freed of domination.
Amadeo: Recently, I started the long process of transitioning gender and am finding little changes with the introduction of a new identity as well as testosterone in my body. I am still researching in a way what it means to be a man. I hope this is what other men do, cause it seems like a worthy lifetime job. A feminist education should be mandatory for boys as many of women’s issues cannot be resolved without men’s issues being resolved too. I don’t think feminism belongs only to women nor that men can only attend as guests. It’s a long open process and needs to be renewed at its core often by the premises that it wished to challenge. I identify as male, but that doesn’t make me “naturally” a chauvinist.
Mike: My experience has been that accepting responsibility or caring is transformative. Looking after children, older people, disabled people; tidying up your home; taking responsibility for “emotional caretaking” in whatever groups we are in; tidying up the mess
Nicholas: I cannot resign from being a man. What is asked of me is the humility to become more aware of what I am, and accept it. Once accepted, then it can become malleable.
Mike: We need a more open, freer concept of masculinity. Open borders. Not ones patrolled with knives, fists and guns.
This discussion is part of a longer exchange for a “DiEM TV goes local” programme now in preparation.
Michael Bosley on behalf of the Gender 1 DSC
How to build a team of activists in a pandemic
At the height of the Greek economic crisis in 2012, a nasty set of stereotypes started to appear in international media. The idea that Greeks were lazy, dishonest, corrupt and other awful things became a hardened narrative in the pages of ‘serious’ press. Stuff like this:
Now, Greece is my adopted country. My wife is Greek, my kids are Greek. There was little truth to these stereotypes. And the fact that they were floating out there unchallenged made me mad.
So I invited a few friends to a bar for a brainstorm to explore what we could do. I asked them to invite anyone they knew who could be interested.
30 people showed up to the meeting that Saturday afternoon in March. Many of them had never done activism before; most had never met. But they all agreed that the negative stereotypes of Greeks in international media, made them mad too. And they wanted to act.
The bar’s name was Omikron. A campaign called Omikron Project was born.
Omikron Project was active for over three years. And thanks to the brilliant team of volunteers who dedicated their time, the campaign had good results. We made some productions we were proud of, generated a wave of media coverage, learned a lot, and had fun while we were at it.
But Omikron was a particularly valuable experience for me, because it taught me how to build an activist team out of nothing. And unless you’re a lone wolf activist, before you can start planning your campaign, it helps to have a team behind you.
So that’s what we’ll focus on here: How to convince a group of strangers to become collaborators, around a cause you all believe in.
Even in a pandemic, when you might not be able to invite a load of people to a bar.
It’s easier than you think.
Step 1: The invitation
Schedule a Zoom meeting
The world of work has been up-ended by COVID. The tools and the culture are now at the point where videoconferencing is a medium of choice, accessible to all.
So instead of bringing people together in a bar for a brainstorm, we can do it on a Zoom call.
Pick a time when you think people can make it. Then schedule the meeting, ideally with your Personal Meeting ID.
Spell out your issue, and make it short
Describe what’s making you mad, in less than 100 words. Use a few examples to illustrate it. Imagine you’re explaining the issue to someone who has never heard of it before.
For example, here’s the body of the original email that spawned Omikron Project:
OK, Greece has enormous political, economic and social problems. But on top of this crisis, the Greek people are being attacked in the global media and online, on a daily basis, with headlines and images like these. [See graphic above.]
Or, here’s how we described the issue for a recent project to save an old stadium in Llubjana, that we worked on with the Campaign Accelerator team at DiEM25:
The Plecnik stadium in Llubjana, built in 1925, is part of Slovenia’s national heritage. Plans are underway to transform the site into a luxury park of skyscrapers, malls and casinos. This ‘renovation’ is headed by a local property developer and supported by the government. It would remove almost all original elements of the stadium, destroying the monument.
Spend some time polishing this text. It helps to get it right.
Explain why people should care about this issue
Since your audience may be hearing about this issue for the first time, you need to persuade them it’s worth attending a brainstorm about. So explain why it should be important to them.
For example, in 2012 Greece’s ‘image crisis’ was having dangerous consequences for Greeks. I explained in the invitation:
Greece’s global image matters because people outside Greece are making decisions that affect the lives of ordinary Greeks. If these people believe that Greece is only like the headlines and images above, they will not be likely to put the Greek people first.
Furthermore, Greeks are beginning to accept what this image suggests about them – that they are lazy, dishonest and corrupt – and to believe that this is what defines them as a people; that it’s how they all really are. This makes it psychologically much harder for them to get through this crisis.
Lastly, 1 in 5 jobs in Greece are in the tourist industry. Nobody wants to visit a country when they’re being told how messed up and dangerous it is.
Mention the direction you’re considering taking
You’re inviting people to an activist brainstorm, so help people to imagine how they can change things. Even if the approach ends up taking a different turn, you can save time by focusing the discussion from the outset.
Here’s an example from a Campaign Accelerator project we did in 2020. A teacher in the UK called Tony Dale was incensed by the fact that an arms company was running UK schools.. The company had a contract with local government, which was up for renewal. His idea of a solution? Get the contract cancelled:
What happens to the contract between [the local] Council and [the arms company] in 2022 could be down to public pressure. It is an important test case for whether we, as citizens, as progressives, can get the arms trade out of our schools. We should give it a try.
For Omikron, my initial idea was to create productions and do media work that could balance the international narrative. So I included it in the invitation.
We can respond to this image crisis by telling the world the other side of the story. For example, by:
Developing creative content (photos, videos, words, collages, etc.) and spreading them internationally, to show that although life in Greece today may be difficult, the country is not a war-zone / failed state / wasteland of endless poverty and misery!
Working with international media to give them facts and statistics to help them balance their stories and put them in proper context, and create a debate on important issues affecting Greece
… and many other grassroots communications actions that could make a real difference!
Including a direction of your proposed approach will help your brainstorm stay on the right course: problem-solving as opposed to problem-pointing.
Tell them who you are
Especially when it comes to politics and activism, people can be suspicious of your motivations. And many people receiving the email may not know you. They likely won’t show to the meeting if they think there’s a company or established group behind the action — or worse, if they fear they could be used.
But yours is a citizen-led initiative, and you’ve got nothing to hide, so tell them who you are. This was from the brief that started Omikron Project:
Who are we? People who care about Greece. Although our background is in marketing and communications, we have no sponsors, agencies, companies or groups behind us. We are united on one cause – to correct the imbalance and respond to this image crisis… so that Greece has one less problem to deal with!
Ensure you have a few people confirmed
A core of people attracts more, and since it’s a brainstorm there needs to be a variety of ideas to make it worth everyone’s time. Plus, an empty meeting doesn’t look — or feel — good.
So, reach out to people you know to invite them, and make sure there are at least eight to ten people confirmed. The rest should RSVP to you, so you know what to expect going into the call.
Right, now you have your invitation. Send it to everyone you know who could have something to offer, and ask them to invite others who might feel the same. Pick a catchy, explicit subject line — here’s the one from the Omikron invitation:
The image crisis of Greece: how can we respond? A brainstorm THIS Saturday (March 31) at 3pm in Omikron Bar
Don’t publish the invitation on social media, since word-of-mouth is a good filter to getting the right people. If you’ve done the groundwork, they will show.
Step 2: The brainstorm
Prepare it
So the brainstorm doesn’t go all over the place, you need to stimulate people’s ideas with something that goes beyond what you sent them in the invitation.
Research a few examples of the issue you’re raising. And list approaches that others have taken to tackle it — or a related issue. Some online searches is all it takes.
For our Omikron brainstorm, I found headlines that pointed to the problem, and examples of similar campaigns as potential solutions.
Lastly, since you’ll be moderating the call, ask someone else if they can take the minutes.
Moderate it
- Relax. Your only goal for this meeting is: Is there enough interest? Could these people work together?
- Get the technical stuff right. There’s plenty of best practice out there on how to hold great Zoom calls — beginning with these two posts from Seth Godin.
- Hold a round of introductions, starting with yourself (max 30 seconds each). Then outline why everyone’s here: to discuss the issue and identify possible approaches.
- Present the issue, covering the examples and approaches you prepared. Don’t communicate any goals; give a direction. As you did in the invitation, help people to imagine how they can change things.
- Then get out of the way and open the floor. Try to ensure everyone gets the chance to speak, because often the most competent people have the least to say. It’s also vital to not let anyone hijack the discussion, which wastes everyone’s time (what Sanders organiser Zack Exley calls ‘The Tyranny Of The Annoying’)
- Keep the meeting light and informal. If it doesn’t seem like working with these people is fun, no-one will want to come back.
- Leave politics out of the call. Keep the focus on the issue at hand.
- Whenever there’s a pause, or the group gets blocked, highlight another potential approach that you prepared before the call.
Step 3: The follow-up
- Right after the meeting, create an online space (even a mailing list will do) where people can continue the conversation, and post links that they mentioned during the meeting. You want to encourage people to share thoughts with the wider group, rather than channeling everything through you. Only invite people to the online space that have taken the time to attend at least one meeting.
- Write up the minutes: a summary of the ideas, links, examples and thoughts that people mentioned during the meeting. Send them to all who attended, and in the same email invite them to the next meeting, which should happen within ten days.
- Send the minutes to anyone you invited to the first meeting who didn’t make it, saying there’s still a chance to get involved if they want to (but if they don’t respond, don’t contact them again).
- Hold the second meeting, which is more focused and solutions-oriented.
As you have more meetings, people will drop off; others may come in and out. But you should be able to assemble a core team who will see the project through.
And then you can start building a real campaign.
Summary
OK, we’ve looked at how to build a team around a cause. Let’s reiterate:
- Invite people. Schedule a Zoom brainstorm to discuss the issue that bothers you. Explain why people should care about it. Mention the direction you’re considering taking, and who you are. Confirm a few people ahead of time so you’re not alone. And ask everyone to invite others who might feel the same.
- Prepare and moderate the brainstorm. Research a few examples of the issue, and of possible approaches. On the meeting day, hold a round of introductions and present the issue. Then get out of the way and let people speak.
- Follow up. Create an online sharing space for the team. Send them the meeting minutes. Organise another, more focused call within ten days. And continue from there.
If this all sounds crazy to you, consider this. Two months ago my wife Olga was despairing at the lack of schooling options in our city. Could it be possible, she wondered, to explore building our own school?
So she applied the method above, starting by inviting people to a Zoom brainstorm who she thought might be interested. And today she’s put together a talented core team, with deep experience in establishing schools. They have done a wealth of research, made links across the country, surveyed nearly 1000 parents in our city to understand their needs, and have 450 (!) people who have offered to help.
It’s true that after their first few online meetings, Olga met many of the core team in person. And there’s no getting around it — Zoom is not a substitute for face-to-face interaction.
But if your focus is local activism, then meeting in person is easy. And if it isn’t, you can still make magic happen. The remote work revolution proves it.
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This article was first published in the activist newsletter SUBVRT.
Deliberative Democracy and Israel‘s Monocultural ‘National Us’
It is not long ago that the recognised litmus test of a vibrant democracy was how you treated your minorities. How far have we come from that now!
I began thinking about the anti-democratic impact of polarisation – which often begins with the little-noticed shutting down of opportunities for deliberative democracy (i.e. for an adult conversation between individuals who think differently and have different interests) such as killing off civility online – as I watched the escalating polarisation that has afflicted the Brexit process, threatening our democratic institutions. The escalating polarisation in the attack on the Labour Party by accusers of antisemitism within and outside the party shares some similar features. Indeed, it has become evident that the Labour Party as currently constructed is totally incapable of dealing with either polarisation.
As a result of being accused of dithering or sitting on the fence, the Labour Party is instead forced into a self-destructive authoritarianism of its own. In neither case were these peripheral issues that regrettably got in the way of those who support the many and not the few, which accordingly should be given short shrift. A Marxist might well say that both in the case of Brexit and ‘antisemitism’ the Labour Party has failed to see these as a front line in the class struggle in the contemporary world. You may well say, not surprisingly… since the UK Labour party is not a Marxist party. In this regard, like many leftwing parties, it is hopelessly economistic and ideologically tone deaf.
I have argued before that in the accusations and counter-accusations around the term Zionist, those who are avowedly anti-Zionist fail to articulate clearly the Monocultural National Us which lurks implicitly in this defining concept of the Israeli state. Criticism of Zionist support for the Israeli state may quickly plunge us into controversy over analogies with apartheid or the precise nature of a colonial-settler state, as we try to pin down what is uniquely appalling about Israeli policies with regard to Palestinians. Soon we find ourselves accused of antisemitism for singling out Israel for special opprobrium when there are many other transgressor states when it comes to human rights. Donald Trump is one such accuser, who doesn’t attempt to explain, of course, why the US singles out Israel for its special protection, considerable support and military alliance, regardless of its breaches of international law and the impunity with which Israel acts towards Palestinians inside and outside its borders.
By the Monocultural National Us in the case of Israel, we are talking, first and foremost about the nature of the state. The Zionist state claims to be especially for Jewish people: in fact it goes out of its way to offer Jewish people everywhere a special access to its citizenship. In this regard, and because Jewishness is linked to race and religion, it is very easy to make the mistake of seeming to criticise Jewishness when criticising the actions of the Israeli nation state. And it is not quite so simple as following the advice that one should always differentiate between criticism of the state and criticism of the Israeli people, in a situation in which so many Israeli citizens and many sections of the Jewish diaspora seem to have bought into the exclusionary rights of the Monocultural National Us. Nor is this confusion of those trying to work out the difference between ‘popular sovereignty’ and a unitary ‘people’s will’ confined to Jewish people. Nationalisms springing up all over the world and in much of Europe all draw on the assumption that what is under threat is “people like us”. And that the threat – for them – precisely begins with diversity – “multiculturalism”, “cosmopolitanism” etc. etc.
It is not surprising that Jewish people have turned in this direction. Given the history of antisemitism, fear and violence in which the state was born, it is actually almost obvious that in this context the ‘Never again’ of World War II should with very little encouragement become, let us always have the upper hand and never be weak or frightened again. It is not at all surprising that internally in Israel, the exclusion and discrimination against its Palestinian minority (around 20 per cent of the population) has become entrenched over the years in laws that are deemed to “preserve the ability to realize the Zionist dream in practice”. It is not surprising that human rights, particularly minority and migrant rights are on the run in Israel, or that the Knesset Presidency recently disqualified a bill named: “Basic Law: Israel [is a] State for All its Citizens”.
And it is not at all surprising that the projected external enemy that always returns to threaten one’s peace has been steadily turning the Occupied Territories into a large open air prison that is a reproach and a scandal in the world. Because, once you begin to go down the path of the Monocultural National Us, predicated on a unitary ‘Us’ and a ‘Them’ defined as inferior if not threatening both internally and externally, this is the logic and inevitable destiny of the National Us. This is why it is so important to criticise the Zionist state and Zionism as the political philosophy which underpins the Israeli state, because it has so clearly become this monocultural or unitary type of National Us, backed by the violence of the state; and because it is in the nature of that same simple economy of desire that, unless it is recognised for what it is and stopped, it must lead to ongoing and escalating violence.
We have many reasons in DiEM25 for regarding this as a key debate for us. For this argument, what is wrong with the Zionist state has nothing at all to do with Jewishness, and everything to do with the unitary nature of the Monocultural National Us. It could be a unitary grouping of anybody and any-ism – as long as it had the capacity to construct a polarised “Us’ and ‘Them’. Its lethality would depend on its state capacity. The moment we begin to look at it this way, Trump has a point. There is something extremely normal, even mundane, about what is wrong with the Israeli nation state in its response to Palestinians. As a late-comer to the model, it is not very different at all from the European nation-state, only differing recently in the degree of violence internal and external that it has been willing to undertake in perpetuation of this nationhood. (See Jacqueline Rose’s thoughtful book The Question of Zion (2005), on how “Zionism …imported into the Middle East a Central European concept of …organic nationhood, founded on ethnicity and blood (or “land, descent and the dead”)… the very version of nationhood from which the Jewish people had had to flee.”)
As we look around Europe today, (and it is the same in the US, in India, in Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Philippines in more and more parts of the world) – we begin to see example after example of liberal states turning towards illiberalism as the Real People – “people like us” – begin to emerge in their midst, often led by a strong leader, while the rest are ignored, vilified and ultimately accused of treachery. Italy offered a good example, with the emergence of ‘the sardine movement’ who packed the squares across Italy just to make the point that Salvini alone does not represent the ‘will of the people’. Boris Johnson’s unitary ‘will of the people’ is the same formation in Brexit Britain. And ‘The Jewish community’, so incessantly invoked in the campaign against antisemitism in the UK Labour Party, is so dangerous because it constitutes yet another unitary ‘Us’ with its inevitable existentially threatening ‘Them’.
But the Real People are doing very well in the current rounds of elections. 70 million votes for Trump isn’t bad at all – is it? What Donald Trump wanted us to conclude when he challenged ‘Israeli exceptionalism’ as anti-Semitic is that an Israeli democracy so constituted has as much right to pursue such policies as any other democracy similarly constituted. But Rose’s point is the opposite one: that the rigour with which Israel pursues the defence of an exclusivist state based on racial and religious unity makes it a stark and leading example of the inevitably racist and self-defeating outcome of ‘organic nationhood’ and its modern descendant which drives what we were quick to identify as the highly dangerous Nationalist International.
Everywhere we look today, we see a decisive worldwide swing towards monocultural constructions of the ‘National Us’ – not just in Hungary or Poland, but a re-Christianising Italy, a re-laicising France, Brexit Britain, a central European “axis of the willing against illegal immigration”, the rise of the AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain, and so on and so forth – we could go on.
There are urgent conclusions we might indeed draw from the Israeli experience. The whole fracas around allegations of antisemitism has imposed a chill factor on many progressive organisations that is preventing them from debating the dangerous turn that has been taken, nationally and internationally, in the world at large, with the monocultural National Us – and certainly not Jewishness – as its driver.
In our transnational, democratising DiEM25 – one way to show solidarity with the predicament in which the Israeli people find themselves, is to raise these issues for urgent debate, allowing the international community hopefully to do more than bear agonised witness to the violence that results.
Art, War and Alleged Democracies
Since early May the world has once again been watching the escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine.
Acts of hatred and violence between the Jewish and Palestinian religious populations, including Hamas rocket attacks against Israel and Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, are once more creating permanent catastrophe, causing untold suffering and the deaths of innocent of people, primarily children and women.
Unbelievably, a biennial with a controversial title Living Together — Crossing Borders is taking place there, amidst the chaos. This is the 4th Mediterranean Biennale, which is being realised in public and private buildings along a street in HAIFA · SAKHNIN VALLE.
The curators advocate that “…the 4th Mediterranean Biennale seeks to reinforce solidarity, delving into the notion of the city as a shared public space, in response to the current Coronavirus crisis and its aftershocks. It sustains interpersonal interaction beyond borders in a time of travel restrictions and social distancing.”. The title and concept were probably conceived several months before the latest escalation of violence.
Unfortunately, in today’s circumstances, the title appears rather ironical. The participating artists, among them politically dissident artists such as Carlos Amorales, Chto Delat, Almaagul Menlibeyava, Ciprian Muresan, Jammis Kounellis and Nevin Aladağ (Turkey-Germany), Hacer Kıroğlu and Ali Kazma from Turkey, must have noticed that at this stage it is “…a game played by fate”, a popular saying in Turkey.
Indeed, having realised this irony, the curators and artists stated the following: “We are passing difficult days dealing with violence and hostility that we did not experience until now. As artists we have a role and the responsibility to create a dialogue between human beings and create a place where everyone can have their say in a debate in which there are no winners or losers…).
How would all these artists react to this ongoing disaster if they had to deal with it? There are ‘taboos’ restricting free expression in all countries on the five continents, including the USA and the EU, with religion and national symbols being the main ones. In countries with strong democracies censorship occurs at the lowest level, but in countries where democracy is damaged it occurs at the highest level, that is, with the imprisonment of artists.
For example, artists who produce harsh opposition works in their own countries at exhibitions held in the Arab world apply self-censorship! Turkey and Israel with their alleged democracies are not an exception in that geography.
However, today, the concepts, methods and forms used in producing art have the power to give the necessary message to society. This is a method of constructing a metaphor that has been valid since the emergence of Surrealism. It is clear that today’s art has an uncanny power, warning us against alienation and proposing solutions! Artists and curators aware of this power should continue their task.
Is there any other region in the world other than the Mediterranean, where history and culture create such extraordinary encounters and diversifications? And what is this geography experiencing within the context of the turmoil, called globalisation-neo-capitalism-post-truth, in this century?
In this geography, religions, cultures and ethnicities have formed knots that are impossible to unravel. The most recent stage of the encounter and diversification took place in the region when tradition and Modernism met one another with radical breaks, rough resistances, loaded submissions and painful assimilations. Large transformations which have left behind wars, migrations, cities destroyed or forced to change, difficult to comprehend in the framework of one’s life…while living amid military, political, economic, social complexities, contrasts, enviable wealths, grievous poverties, economic fluctuations, ecological disasters, political corruption, Mediterranean people are both envied and harassed by those in the rest of the world.
The millennia-old cities of the Mediterranean conceal in themselves deep and complex memories of all the transformations. Artists today, who refuse to accept reality and life as they are, trace these memories scrupulously and with patience. They claim that in order to understand the Mediterranean and all the phenomena it implies it is perhaps necessary to pay attention and investigate the Postmodern art produced in this region. They claim perhaps this is the easiest way, and that metaphors are often more meaningful than realities and lives.
My professional experience with Israel
Israel was the first country I went to in the Middle East. Three times, in 1994, 1996 and 1999. The most comprehensive Modern and contemporary art collections in Vienna’s East are in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Modern and Contemporary Art Museums. The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 in Tehran by Farah Pahlavi, cannot compete with the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and those museums acquired by wealthy sheikhs in Arab countries over the last 20 years.
Every year, businessmen living outside of Israel donate new works to the collections according to the lists prepared by the museum curators. Just before the assasination of President Rabin in 1994, I was invited to the 1st ArtFocus organised to promote Israeli contemporary art. This became the Jerusalem Biennale (Jerusalem Biennale) in 1999. This first biennial, curated by Kaspar König, was held in the valley, formerly known as Gehenna (hell), now known as the Sultan’s Pool, separating the old city from the new city, and was heavily criticised for its $ 1.3 million budget and content.
In 1996, I was again invited to a workshop entitled “Israel Forum for Mediterranean Culture” organised by the Jerusalem Foundation and the Jan van Leer Institute. After 1998, it was difficult for me to get a visa to travel to Israel because my passport had stamps of Islamic countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. Although I was invited to a conference in Ramallah, I could not go. The tolerance and hospitality had ended. Israel’s contemporary art production often draws attention at the Pavilion of the Venice Biennials. However it should be noted that the selected artists can not so freely perform political and cultural critical works and exhibit these in the official pavilion.
Video: Ilan Pappé in conversation with Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis, DiEM25 co-founder and MeRA25 leader, and Ilan Pappé discuss the global crisis, disobedience, Israel, Palestine and more!
In the context of a long discussion organised by the University of Exeter, on the transition from capitalism to techno-feudalism, Yanis Varoufakis and Ilan Pappé dedicated 15′ discussing recent events in Palestine/Israel and the manner in which the Israeli state is pursuing its Apartheid policies both within Israel and the Occupied Territories.